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" Click here to view images from the book The Barrymores: Hollywood's First Family documents the history of America's acting dynasty in words and pictures with never-before-seen photos from the Barrymore collection. Including beautiful portraits from John and Dolores's honeymoon, film stills, and dozens of other rare photographs, this collection is the first to fully present the glamour and the legend that is Barrymore. Spanning over six generations, two continents, and three centuries, the family of actors that would be known as the Barrymores has become an icon of the American stage and screen. From Elizabethan England to present-day Hollywood, there has never been a more talented, romantic, and complex family tree. When Herbert Blyth changed his name to Maurice Barrymore to spare his family the embarrassment of his chosen profession of acting, he unknowingly gave name to an acting tradition that would combine four respected theater families: the Lanes, the Blyths, the Drews, and the Costellos. These skills culminated with the births of siblings John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore. Beginning their careers on the stage, each moved to the silent screen and "talking pictures" with an ease that could only come from generations of talent. John, especially, became a figure of American adoration. John's marriage to beautiful young ingénue Dolores Costello, also of an acting family, would be a Hollywood union to rival all others. The story of their first embrace during a scene of The Sea Beast -- a kiss that continued long after the director called, "Cut!" -- was the stuff of legend, and their honeymoon to the Galapagos Islands provided a fitting fairytale escape. But the story doesn't stop there. Of their two children, son John Drew Barrymore (collaborator on this book) would follow in the acting tradition, and his daughter Drew Barrymore reigns today as savvy child star turned screen idol and powerful producer.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This homage to the Barrymore acting family contains never-before-seen pictures documenting the history of an American dynasty that extends over six generations. John Drew Barrymore, son of John "The Great Profile" Barrymore and father to actress Drew, worked with friends of 25 years, Hoffman and husband Ralph Lumi, to produce this compilation. The book shares pictures, diary entries, and letters that chronicle this extraordinary family. Descendants of acting families on all sides the Lanes, the Drews, and the Blyths (changed to Barrymore to avoid the shame that so often came with a career in acting) siblings Lionel, Ethel, and John were probably the most famous actors of the early 20th-century stage and screen. Though the lineage of each family is nicely laid out, this is not a biography so much as an intimate album of family memorabilia. It is a look at a time gone by and a great acting family, who might have been forgotten today were it not for the success of young Drew. Highly recommended for all libraries. Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Salinas, CA Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"All of the glamour and adulation are here." -- Journal of the West

"I know this book will please the many admirers who still worship at the Barrymore shrine. I hope it will also serve as an introduction to a new generation, and perhaps inspire them to seek out the work of Drew's grandparents on film." -- Leonard Maltin, from the Preface

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

You can never have enough photos of the Barrymores. Books like "Good Night Sweet Prince" are superb, but lack photos. This new coffee table book is almost entirely made up of photographs. It was made with the involvement of John Barrymore Jr, the spaced out hippy son of John Barrymore (and father of Drew.) There are lots of rare family photos, and a neat section on "Barrymoreabilia".

This book was well put together,the photos are excellent. You get a good feel for the way Hollywood was in the 30's and 40's and earlier......I love the Hollywood of the past and how the Barrymore's got started...fascinating family and how they live....well worth the money.......valerie

Love biographical books. This is filled with great information I had previously not known. Written well and entertaining. Recommend for anyone who wants to delve into the history of our first dynasty of film and theatre